


That Sort of Thing

by SuspenDisbelief



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Adorkable charming teens being teens, Aunt May is like how i am such an adult, Between Homecoming and Far From Home, F/M, Pining, Some hard Peter crushing scenes, peter parker pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 03:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20167138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuspenDisbelief/pseuds/SuspenDisbelief
Summary: Between Homecoming and Far From Home, a lot of things changed for Peter Parker. Straight out of his first failure in romance, it is decided that Spider-Man and dating do not mix. Of course, the Venn Diagram of what Peter decides will happen and what will actually happen is just two side-by-side circles.After watching the utterly charming teen romance in Far From Home, which made me nostalgia hard for those 16 year old butterflies, I present a series of scenes of awkward flirtations set pre- and post- Infinity War/Endgame.





	That Sort of Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not allowed to post multi-chapter fics anymore, until I finish writing them first, so I just pounded out this one shot in the morning before my shift in order to release the adorable feelings that Far From Home inspired.

After everything with Liz and her dad, Peter decided that he should maybe cool it on the whole dating thing for awhile. Besides, with his particular after school activities, it was probably the safest option for everyone. He felt very stoic as he contemplated this great superhero-y sacrifice he was making, as he sat in his usual spot in the cafeteria across from Ned, almost two months after the disaster that was the homecoming dance. Yes, Peter thought, being Spider-Man was a great burden that he could share with no-

“’Sup, losers?” Peter startled out of his musings as MJ slumped onto the bench to his left, her tray landing on the table with a light crack of plastic on plastic. Ned, caught with a mouthful of tuna fish, offered are quick wave.

“Hey, MJ.” Peter tried not to visibly wince at the way his voice cracked over her initials and grabbed his soda with a quick cough to clear his throat. The way that her eyes honed in on him made Peter feel like she could tell his every secret and considered them all incredibly dull. It was freaky, but in a kinda cool way.

***

“Peeeeeeete!” May shrieked as she ran towards him in the lobby of the dusty conference centre on the wrong side of the Holland Tunnel. She wrapped her arms around his head and pulled him onto her shoulder as she continued to exclaim in his ear, “Oh, you were the smartest of all the smart kids! You were great!”

“Maaaaay!” He groaned in response as he tried to twist out of her grip. She let him go with a laugh, but gave him a light slap on the shoulder.

“I get to be proud of my genius boy!” May said, far too loudly as the other students attending the last Academic Decathlon match before the holiday break began to gather round with their families. Peter glanced about, relieved to see almost everyone distracted. Except MJ. She stood alone, leaning against a nearby wall staring towards him with an eyebrow raised. Peter felt his ears start to burn as he shushed his aunt, trying and failing not to glance back at MJ every few seconds. May, having eyes, noticed the direction of Peter’s attention and gave the girl a cheerful wave and motioned for her to join them. Peter didn’t quite understand the strange mix of horror and adrenaline that he felt at her approach, but he prayed to every Asgardian he could think of that his face wasn’t turning as red as he thought it was.

“Hi, Ms. Parker.” MJ gave May a quick nod. She was always so cool, Peter thought.

“Michelle, right?” May continued, seemingly oblivious to her nephew’s angst, “Call me May, sweetheart. You were amazing up there today! You should be so proud of yourself. I tell Pete that he’s the smartest, but that’s only cause I have to.” She said with a wink and a cheeky grin to them both. MJ blinked slowly, hesitating just long enough for a silence to settle in before responding.

“Thanks, but we really couldn’t have won without Peter. You did good, today.” She said addressing him directly and turning up the temperature in his cheeks by another degree. Why was this all_ so weird?_ Peter thought as he mumbled an awkward wordless acknowledgment of her compliment.

“Where’s your ride, Michelle? I’m going to take Peter out for some hot chocolates before we hit the tunnel if you’d all like to join us.” “Oh,” At this MJ looked noticeably caught off guard, possibly the first time that Peter had seen her expression that open, for only a brief second before it closed off and she slumped her shoulders casually.

“I’m just grabbing a ride with Mr. Harrington. I’ll do you a favour and not mention the invite to him. Thanks, though.”

Without him even realizing it, Peter squared his shoulders and the words “youshouldridebackwithus” rushed out of his mouth without any space for breath. May politely disguised her bark of laughter as a cough and MJ just blinked at him wordlessly for what seemed like fooooorever.

“Ok,” She said decidedly and Peter thought he could see a hint of a smile on her face, feeling a little silly and proud for putting it there. “Ok,” MJ repeated, “I guess I’ll let Mr. Harrington know.”

***

“Your friend Michelle is very funny.” May said later that night as they walked into their unit, finally back home in Queens.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed absently as he headed to the fridge to scrounge the leftover take out, “She’s weird, but I guess it’s in a really cool, funny, smart kind of way.”

“Mmm-hmm,” May agreed throwing her purse onto the counter and snagging a paper carton that Peter had pushed to the side. “And very pretty too.” At this, he jerked his head out of the fridge too quickly, only just smacking into the edge of the freezer above and spitting out a few grains of cold fried rice. He struggled to swallow the remaining mouthful as his mouth had become strangely dry.

“I guess,” Peter shrugged, but the pitch of his voice was high even in his own ears, “I don’t really think I noticed either way.” He didn’t think that he was being untruthful when he said this, but the words felt the same way as his other big lies always did. May gave him smile and a pat on the head before skipping back towards her room with her takeout and a fork. Unbidden, the image of MJ smiling at him over hot chocolates as they discussed pre-historic global extinction events came to the forefront of his brain. Damn, she was really pretty wasn’t she? It was a good thing that Spider-Man didn’t care about that kind of thing anymore.

***

Peter had a really good thing going for awhile. May didn’t get too freaked out about the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man-ing if his grades stayed up and he hid the worst of the scrapes. He made time for a couple of extra academic activities and he saw Ned and MJ outside of school to hang on a semi-regular basis. He could handle things.

And then there was a Snap. At least that’s what he was told, after the fact. There was a Snap and then a Blip and then the biggest fight of his life. And then… well, then, for awhile at least, it seemed like nothing would be good again. The school board decided that the Blip survivors would come back in January and redo the last semester. Yeah, it sucked that they were a month out from summer vacation when everything went down back in 2018, but Peter was honestly looking forward to get something normal in his life again. Back in the halls of Midtown, Peter saw Ned again for the first time since they, well, kinda died? All their old cellphones had been cut off years ago and their families had been displaced, but they had tracked each other down on Facebook prior to the first day of school at least. But seeing him there, solid and alive, made Peter the happiest he had been in months. Peter also knew from his online sleuthing that Flash, Betty, Abe, and a couple of his other old classmates would be back for the new term. But even before the Snap, MJ was a ghost. At least, online that is. He had seen that she had been a victim of his initial failure on Titan from looking up Snap records, but he had no idea where she was now. Her mom could’ve moved anywhere in the last five years. Like even Jersey. His chest ached oddly at the thought.

For his first morning back, even after his happy reunion with Ned, Peter spent his classes glancing over his shoulder waiting for her to stroll in, late and confident and _alive_. By lunch, he was feeling dejected and ready to ask Ned to help him hack into the school records to see if she was even enrolled. Walking into the cafeteria, though, was when he finally saw her. The moment he noticed her silhouette, with her back to him sitting at their usual table, he started choking on his own gasp. There was a hard slap to his back accompanied by a familiar sneering laugh, and he started sputtering.

“Watch it, Penis.” Flash jeered as he walked by, swinging his elbows and knocking into Peter who was still coughing. The commotion earned a few glances from nearby seats and Peter watched as MJ’s shoulders tensed up and she turned to face him, a big grin erupting on her features as she waved him over. Flash and his obnoxious attitude was all but forgotten.

Peter settled in beside MJ, trying to come up with something more meaningful to say than, “Hey.”

“Hey.” She replied, almost returning to her usual cool, except for the warmth in her eyes. “I had to scare a group of seniors off when I got in here. They were under the mistaken impression that this was their table for the past four years. Weird.”

_You’re so cool and pretty and I think I really wanna kiss your face_, thought Peter as the relief of sitting next to her washed over him. It almost felt like things were okay. “What did you do to scare them?” Is what he actually said out loud.

“Just started talking about my favourite murders. They didn’t get too freaked out until they realized that I wasn’t actually talking to them though.” She smirked and waggled her eyebrows mysteriously. As he did often, pre-Blip, when he started to think too much about MJ’s eyes or lips or laugh, Peter reminded himself that it was too dangerous for Spider-Man to get crushes on girls and that she was cool and weird, but only a really good friend. But that was pre-Blip. When he had all the time in the world and being a hero meant rescuing cats from trees and returning stolen bikes. Now he had been to space, fought an army, and lost someone he had thought was immortal. Life was short, dude. And MJ, well, he would really like to kiss MJ at least once before he has to save the world again.

“You should tell me about them.” Peter said. MJ looked at him skeptically. “About your favourite murders, I mean. Not the people you scared off.” Weirdly, the skeptical look did not leave her face, but softened into something more thoughtful.

“Well, I have some theories on who killed the Black Dahlia,” She offered, almost timidly, and Peter nodded enthusiastically for her to continue. While he listened intently to her description of the suspects, pausing only to welcome Ned back to his place of honour across from them, Peter decided that he’d come up with a plan and, by the end of the year, he would tell MJ how he felt. Maybe she would be into that whole dating thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Ride home scene obviously inspired by alleged cut scene from Homecoming. Twisted to my own purposes, as fanfic does. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Comment below with your what your dream teen romance scene between these two would be; I personally think some senior year camping trips would be a tropey dream! (｡♥‿♥｡)


End file.
